AMR in Livestock: Innovation and the Role of GASL

3 October 2018, Iraq Room, FAO

Background

Projected increases in animal protein demand and consumption are likely to maintain livestock’s position as one of the fastest growing sub-sectors in agriculture for the foreseeable future, particularly in low-income and emerging economies. Much of this demand growth has so far been met by rapidly expanding modern forms of intensive livestock production, but more traditional and diversified systems continue to exist in parallel.

Far-reaching changes in the cost and availability of natural resources, combined with demands for product diversity, food safety and quality, and increasing social, environmental and animal welfare concerns, however, are creating new opportunities and challenges to livestock production. In addition, the growing reach of international value chains not only diversifies rural livelihood options, but also exposes production to rapidly changing patterns of competition, market preferences, and rules and standards. Furthermore, the impact of chronic disease burdens, concerns on the prophylactic use of antimicrobial drugs, emerging infectious diseases, accelerating climate change, land degradation, and biodiversity loss, means that the livestock sector needs to tackle an ever-evolving set of production, pests and disease threats, often in rapidly declining environmental conditions. 

The Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock (GASL) is focusing on how the livestock sector can best contribute to the world’s need for sustainable food and agriculture, in a context of an increasing world population, growing scarcity of natural resources, and accelerating climate change. Solutions need to be found for the sector to produce more, from less, in ways which benefit all.

Purpose of the event

GASL is a key driver for innovation in sustainable livestock development worldwide. This multistakeholder approach has proven to be effective at facilitating a targeted exchange of expertise and experiences at public and private levels. FAO has affirmed the Sustainable Development Goals as the driver of and benchmark for the activities of GASL. The GASL Action Networks will continue their work to further improve the delivery of tangible results in terms of positive impact on farmers’ income and sustainable livestock development worldwide. Agribusiness companies and research institutes are interested in sharing their knowledge and working together with international business partners to make livestock farming more efficient and sustainable.

This side-event is organized in response to the call from the 25th session of the Committee on Agriculture in 2016, to define and evaluate the link between GASL’s activities and the most relevant Sustainable Development Goals. The event will provide a brief update on GASL’s value proposition in its four priority work areas: Food and nutrition security; Livelihoods and economic growth; Health and animal welfare; Climate and natural resource use. Specific focus will be given to Anti-microbial resistance. GASL has LAMP (Livestock Antimicrobial Partnership), a dedicated Action Network on Antimicrobial Resistance as an area for policy action. Director-General FAO, Graziano da Silva called for halting the use of antimicrobial medicines to promote growth in farm animals and said countries and rural communities need support to combat antimicrobial resistance. FAO advocates that antibiotics and other antimicrobials should be only used to cure diseases and alleviate unnecessary suffering. LAMP promotes multistakeholder dialogue and promotes improvements in the responsible use of antimicrobials in livestock, for example by sharing good practices and guidelines for specific sectors in specific regions.

Documents

Agenda

 

Presentations

Introduction of GASL Fritz Schneider

LAMP Ulf Magnusson

Young Farmer's Testimony of Practice Iris Bouwers

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